The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia: A Historical Narrative based on the written testimony of the Polish Siberian survivors

Jan Peczkis|Sunday, April 17, 2011

This work consists of dozens of 2-4 page testimonies of Poles who lived in the Soviet-annexed Kresy (Poland's pre-WWII eastern half), and who were deported in 1940-1941 as "enemies of the people" by the Soviet Communist authorities and NKVD. The testimonies touch on prewar life and the start of WWII in 1939, the early Soviet occupation, the fateful night of arrest and deportation, and long trip to the Gulags, the unspeakable living and working conditions there, the many deaths in the Gulags, the "amnesty" caused by Nazi Germany attacking its erstwhile Soviet ally in June 1941, the freed surviving remnants of the Gulags gathering in the southern USSR, the participation in the Battle of Monte Cassino, and the post-WWII life in various countries (especially the USA).

The Zydokomuna (Bolshevized Judaism) has long been a factor antagonizing Poles. Jewish support for the Soviets is often exculpated as gratitude for not falling into the hands of the Nazis. This does not hold, as evidenced by the fact that active Jewish collaboration went much deeper than that. It continued long, long after the Red Army had first occupied the Kresy.

Jewish-Soviet collaboration was an overtly anti-Polish act, as evidenced by Jewish militias actively participating in the mass arrests of Poles and their deportation to Siberia. (pp. 99-100, 128-129, 188, 314, 353). These are eyewitness testimonies, not anti-Semitic fantasies. One particularly odious aspect of Jewish-Soviet collaboration was the active participation of Jewish acquaintances in the denunciation of Poles and in their arrests (e. g., p. 314), as well as the profanation of Christian symbols by Jewish militiamen. (p. 100). Of course, these examples are only those which the authors chose to mention, and do not include the covert forms of Jewish denunciation of prominent Poles to the Soviets, not noticed by the Polish victims.

Recently, Russian revisionists have tried to degrade the number of Poles deported to Siberia. These estimates are based on 25 deportees per railroad car. In reality, the number of deportees per car were 30-40 (p. 101), 40 (p. 364), 50 (p. 77), 50 (p. 285), and 65 (p. 315).

This book contains an assortment of interesting information. For instance, one of the later deportees lived in Lublin, Poland, a block away from Princess Gagarina. The latter was supposed to be an aunt of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. (p. 35).